


Parade Rest

by jadelennox



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: BDSM, F/M, Porn Battle, Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-07
Updated: 2011-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:14:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadelennox/pseuds/jadelennox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Soldier," Cordelia said, with a scornful lilt. She prowled around him. One finger flicked against his unbuttoned collar. "Disgraceful." Her knuckles cracked lightly against the back of his head, in the gray of his hair. "Untidy." She circled back around, her eyes traveling up his form and finding him wanting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parade Rest

**Author's Note:**

> This was for Petra's Porn Battle, and is way filthier than almost anything else I write. All the hearts in the world to Petra and L, without whom Cordelia would have been defying the laws of gravity more than she already is.
> 
> [](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/)  
> This work by jadelennox is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/).

Cordelia was grimy and exhausted, but at least she'd reached the easiest part of packing. All her other clothes had been sorted for packing, storage, disposal, or charity. Miles and even Aral might not understand why she didn't just take what she needed to Sergyar and leave the rest untouched. _It's not like I'm planning on moving into your suite, Mother_. Just because Cordelia had become accustomed to having the closet larger than her entire apartment on Beta colony didn't mean she would be so wasteful as to leave a closet full of clothes behind when she moved _off-planet_.

Finally, after a solid week of briefings about Chaos Colony, the worm plague, and the terraforming efforts all day, followed by packing and sorting all night, she had reached the back of her closet. These clothes no longer fit a body thickened by time -- by a Barrayaran's lifetime. Moreover, they were almost uniformly terrible, acquired before she had learned to trust whatever Alys told her about wardrobe. Briskly she filled a box with skirts 30 years out of fashion in the garish colors and trims she had experimented with while trying to learn what Barrayarans considered "feminine". She supposed at this juncture she could task an armsman with the duty. There was no point, however; she was nearly finished.

And then, nearly at the back of the closet, she found... hmm. With one hand, she stroked down the high-tech fabric. It wouldn't fit her anymore, that was the problem. She pursed her lips.

A few minutes later, Cordelia strode purposefully from her suite, calling for an armsman. "Oh, good, Jankowski," she said. "I need a tailor."

* * *

 _A week later_

Aral was too weary even for a drink after dinner. The Regency had been the most exhausting, life consuming task he could imagine, but this preparation was a different kind of tiring. Two weeks of briefings and arrangements, of preparing the district for a smooth transition to Miles' control, of splitting his household. Two weeks of scarcely seeing Cordelia as she met with the xenopathologists and read the reports of the previous viceroy. He stumbled up the stairs, hoping for nothing more than his bed and swift sleep.

On his threshold, Aral paused, blinking, not quite able to make sense of what he saw.

"Come in and shut the door," said Cordelia. Her crisp tones were more authoritative than usual.

"Cordelia," he said, dumbly. And then " _Dear Captain._ "

Over the past week, his bedroom had gotten progressively less homey as boxes, cases, and the detritus of packing had replaced the hangings, cushions, and miscellany of an lived-in bedroom. The boxes were gone, now, banished to who-knows-where, and the bare walls left the room Spartan. Were it not for the room's breadth and windows, it would almost be barracks like. And standing before the bed...

Undefeated, undefeatable, a towering roan vision in baggy tan fatigues.

"Shut the door," she repeated. Her voice was firm as always, but the characteristic gentleness was muted. Perhaps absent. He shut the door behind himself and took three steps into the room. His body fell naturally into parade rest, and he stood there, hands behind his back, as she approached him.

"Soldier," Cordelia said, with a scornful lilt. She prowled around him. One finger flicked against his unbuttoned collar. "Disgraceful." Her knuckles cracked lightly against the back of his head, in the gray of his hair. "Untidy." She circled back around, her eyes traveling up his form and finding him wanting. She stood so close to him he could feel the heat of her body. His eyes were locked on her hips, where her fists now rested, bunching the material of her fatigues against her body. "Eyes UP," she barked.

Aral's eyes straight forward, at the blank wall over her shoulder. He choked on a sudden, almost panicked snort of laughter.

Her face settled in the cold lines. "What's so funny, soldier?"

He smoothed his face as quickly as he could. "Nothing, sir."

Her face was now a breath away from his. She hissed each word, her voice burning with quiet, angry authority. "What's. So. Funny. Soldier?"

His breath came in short bursts, and he kept his gaze blank and faraway, because, well.

...he knew what happened when you met their eyes.

He swallowed, short of breath. "Sir. I was thinking of that old military joke, sir. About standing at ease and at attention at the same time, sir."

In his peripheral vision he saw the tiny crinkle around her eyes that usually betokened amusement, but he couldn't parse it. There was no reason for this angry, scoffing officer to be amused. Unless it was at the ridiculous catastrophe of Aral Vorkosigan trying to be a soldier.

She tapped one cool finger against his chin. "Are you standing at attention now, soldier?"

"Sir, yes sir." He forced the words out past the tightness in his lungs.

"Hmm." She stalked behind him. He couldn't see her, couldn't hear her, couldn't feel her. His trousers (stylish city garments, tighter and less practical than his own dress greens) were stretched by the unaccustomed posture of parade rest, and pressed against him, constricted, uncomfortable. His shirt, too, was pulled tight, trapping the cotton of his undershirt against his chest. He could feel every hair on his body standing on end, every inch of skin heated and waiting for... something.

He breathed.

An eternity later, he heard footsteps, and she stood in front of him once more. You could barely have slipped a vibroknife between their bodies. "Out of uniform, unshaven, sloppy, and disrespectful." He was mesmerized by the slight quirk at the corner of her mouth, the faint network of lines, the shapes they made. Distracted, he nearly jumped when her right hand touched his shoulder and pressed down. "Time for your oral reprimand, soldier."

That was a joke, Aral thought, and he had a brief moment of panic when he wondered if he were supposed to laugh. But the commanding hand on his shoulder, well, there was no confusion there. He yielded to its reassuring authority and slipped to his knees. With his hands still behind his back, he teetered for moment, losing balance, and fell forward against her tan-clad crotch. He heard a breath hissed above him, and then her other hand pressed against the back of his head, holding him tight against her.

For a few minutes, he panted hot breaths into her, mouthing at the fabric. He was floating, off-balance, but held safe in the grip between the floor and the hand on his shoulder, her warm thighs and the hand on his head. The technologically sophisticated Betan fabric didn't absorb the moisture of his breath, his tongue.

"At ease, soldier," he heard. "And put your back into it."

His hands fell away from each other quite of their own accord. He reached around her, clutched her ass, held her tight against his mouth. She responded by digging her fingers harder into his shoulder, his head, and he moaned his satisfaction at the pressure.

He bit her through the fatigues. At the sound she made, he was suddenly desperate. His hands scrabbled around her, struggling with her belt, yanking down the fatigues and the underwear beneath until they pooled around her ankles. Her balance shifted subtly, and he vaguely thought she might be leaning on the bedpost, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care.

A hoarse laugh came from above him as he thrust his nose into the crinkled red tangle, breathing in deep. "If your punishment duty is completed successfully, soldier, we --" A gasp. "We might consider moving on to more complex field exercises."

He couldn't think, he couldn't understand, he just acted. His hands moved around behind her again, each one grasping the back of a thigh and pulling slightly. Her weight shifted, and she would have wobbled but he pressed his face further into her, providing the balance point to hold her up. The pressure was even better now, the hand on his head pressing one direction, gravity on the other. He crooked his neck against the weight to get the angle just so.

There. He could reach her labia now with his tongue, and he reached out, lapped, felt the coarse hairs. He wrapped his mouth around her and sucked, was rewarded by a gush of flavor and the tightening of her grip on the back of his head. He strained, ignored the discomfort, and reached until he could lap inside her.

 _Oh, God._

She moved briefly, trying to kick one leg free of the fatigues. He scrabbled at her combat boots, blind, frantic, and managed to get one off as she rested more of her weight on the bedpost above. She freed that leg from trouserleg, and then returned her weight to his face. He'd have given a grateful sigh if his mouth hadn’t been busy.

Her thighs tightened, imprisoned his head even further, and it was darkness and pressure and sweet sweet musk. His face was sopping, sticky with her as he thrust his tongue into her, sucked on her clit, rubbed his nose against her mons. Her right hand left his shoulder, joined her left hand on the back of his head, and she pressed, holding him tight, making his duty clear.

Her weight shifted again, and without warning he felt the pressure of a booted foot against his neglected cock. He keened as he came, his mouth clamping down around her as he sucked her juices in. Her hips jerked and he gripped her tighter as her tremors passed through his mouth, all the way through his body it felt like, as if he were a live wire, her climax triggering his and keeping it from ending, on and on and on and on.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so, apparently I worked out a lot of my personal Aral canon through writing this story. Canon I didn't know I had, about how he really does not want to be in charge of anything but is convinced (not without reason) that being in control of events is the only way to prevent genocide.
> 
> With Cordelia, he can let go.


End file.
